IBT Staff Reporter

Japan's Hitachi Ltd <6501.T> said on Tuesday that it aimed to cut annual operating costs by 5 percent in four years, enabling the company to invest more in its growing infrastructure and telecommunications businesses.

Temasek Holdings, the smaller but more visible of Singapore's two sovereign funds, is moving into a new phase with its investment strategy, and could look more like Blackstone Group , another $160 billion institution, which has grown from a focused private equity firm to a global asset manager.

Norway's Telenor ASA, whose India joint venture is among companies that are set to lose their telecoms licenses, has served a notice to the Indian government, claiming damages of nearly $14 billion, the Times of India reported on Tuesday.

Microsoft Corp claimed a victory in efforts to combat online banking fraud, saying it had confiscated several servers used to steal login names and passwords, disrupting some of the world's most sophisticated cybercrime rings.

U.S. tech giants Hewlett Packard and Oracle on Monday both sought pretrial wins in their bitter legal battle over whether Oracle can end support for Itanium, a heavy-duty microprocessor.

Singapore Airlines Ltd , the world's second largest by market value, said on Tuesday it paid a fine of 25 million rand ($3.29 million) to settle a South African investigation into price-fixing of flights between Johannesburg and Hong Kong.

Online auction company EBay Inc said on Monday it had blocked global sales of sorbitol following the death of a medical patient in Italy who consumed a sample of the sugar substitute which had been bought on the Internet.

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly fell in February, suggesting a loss of momentum in the housing market after recent signs of improvement.

Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LP plan to take Michaels Stores Inc public, nearly six years after they bought North America's largest retailer of arts and crafts for more than $6 billion, four people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

AIG expects American taxpayers to end up with a profit of $5 billion to $10 billion on the company's 2008 rescue when all is said and done, the chief executive of the bailed-out insurer said on Monday.

Former clients of MF Global are growing more optimistic about the prospects for recovering their frozen money, which is helping to bid up the price of customer claims being resold to distressed debt traders and investors.

The U.S. economy needs to grow more quickly to bring the unemployment rate down further, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday, defending the central bank's policy of very low interest rates.

When it comes to Apple, investors could become victims of their own success.

Short interest on the New York Stock Exchange rose 2.04 percent in the first half of March, the exchange said on Monday.

The S&P 500 rebounded from its worst week so far this year to retake a four-year high on Monday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled supportive monetary policy will remain even though the job picture has begun to improve.

Deutsche Bank AG has agreed to pay $32.5 million to investors who said they were misled about the quality of mortgage loans sold to them as highly rated securities right before the U.S. housing market imploded, court papers show.

U.S. regulators are pressuring Internet companies to put in place by the end of the year a Do Not Track system that would give consumers more control over their personal data online, in a report released on Monday that privacy advocates dismissed as too soft.

Facebook Inc urged a federal judge on Monday to throw out a lawsuit by a New York wood pellet salesman who said he deserves half of founder Mark Zuckerberg's stake in the social media company, calling the case a fraud.

Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LP have tapped banks for an initial public offering of Michael Stores Inc, North America's largest specialty retailer of arts and crafts which they paid over $6 billion to take private in 2006, four people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Facebook Inc released emails by founder Mark Zuckerberg from his days at Harvard University to bolster its arguments that a wood-pellet salesman who sued for a 50 percent stake in the social media company lied and forged documents.

Tax officials will not penalize farmers who could not properly file their taxes because they had accounts at bankrupt broker MF Global.

The economy needs to grow more quickly to bring the unemployment rate down further, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday, defending the central bank's policy of very low interest rates.

Andreessen Horowitz, a three-year-old venture capital firm, has made a big mark in Silicon Valley partly through the sheer scale of its endeavors, with big funds totaling some $2.7 billion and big investments in high-profile companies including Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon.

BMW AG , the world's largest premium carmaker, is recalling about 1.3 million cars for repair worldwide due to a possible problem with a battery cable cover in the trunk, the carmaker said on Monday.

U.S. companies borrowed more to buy equipment in February than a year ago, though less than in January, and spent mostly for new technology and aging goods replacement, the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association said on Monday.

Stock indexes gained 1 percent on Monday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled a supportive monetary policy will stay even as the unemployment rate improves.

Sears Holdings Corp's Chief Marketing Officer Monica Woo left the struggling chain earlier this year after just five months, dealing yet another blow to the retailer as it tries to turnaround its business.

OTTAWA, March 26 - Canada's farm minister highlighted on Monday the global marketing reach of Swiss-based Glencore in the latest sign from Ottawa that it has little appetite for blocking the company's proposed takeover of grain handler Viterra.

Greece's exit from the euro would be a catastrophic political and economic mistake that would severely weaken Europe's single currency bloc, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a BBC interview broadcast on Monday.